"I can see that I must
try to earn your better opinion."

Hamel read steadily for the remainder of the morning. It was past one
o'clock when he rose stiffly from his seat among the sand knolls and,
strolling back to the Tower, opened the door and entered. The cloth was
laid for luncheon in the little sitting-room, but there were no signs
of Hannah Cox. He passed on into the kitchen and came to a sudden
standstill. Once more the memory of his own work passed away from him.
Once more he was back again among that queer, clouded tangle of strange
suspicions, of thrilling, half-formed fears, which had assailed him at
times ever since his arrival at St, David's. He stopped quite short.
The words which rose to his lips died away. He felt the breathless,
compelling need for silence and grew tense in the effort to make no
sound.

Hannah Cox was kneeling on the stone floor. Her ear was close to the
crack of the door which led into the boat-house. Her face, half turned
from it, was set in a strange, concentrated passion of listening; her
lips were parted, her eyes half closed. She took no more notice of Hamel
or his arrival than if he had been some useless piece of furniture.
Every faculty seemed to be absorbed in that one intense effort of
listening. There was no need of her out-stretched finger. Hamel fell
in at once with a mood so mesmeric. He, too, listened. The small clock
which she had brought with her from the village ticked away upon the
mantelpiece. The full sea fell with placid softness upon the high beach
outside. Some slight noise of cooking came from the stove. Save for
these things there was silence. Yet, for a space of time which Hamel
could never have measured, they both listened. When at last the woman
rose to her feet, Hamel, finding words at last, was surprised to find
that his throat was dry.

"What is it, Mrs. Cox?" he asked. "Why were you listening there?"

Her face was absolutely expressionless. She was busying herself now with
a small saucepan, and her back was turned towards him.

"I spend my life, sir," she said, "listening and waiting. One never
knows when the end may come."

"But the boat-house," Hamel objected. "No one has been in there his
morning, have they?"

"Who can tell?" she answered. "He could go anywhere when he chose, or
how he chose--through the keyhole, if he wanted."

"But why listen?" Hamel persisted. "There is nothing in there now but
some odds and ends of machinery."

She tu